Student: Ghialana Borges

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/37385

Writing Assignment Used for This Interview

Throughout the course you will be collecting material and writing for a 15-page research paper that either visually or narratively maps a particular place of significance to you and that will in some way help you with the future work you envision for yourself. You will be designing a map that helps you to tell the multiple stories of this place. This means that when you design your map, you need to find ways to show these different layers of stories that are connected to particular sites on your map. You can hand draw or paint your map (murals as maps or art as maps), you can include little booklets that are numbered according to the sites you discuss, or you can try to design other innovate ways to communicate to your audience the significance of the place you are describing. You can also make a map video where you include interviews with people or oral recordings of the mo‘olelo.

For your three-page project proposal, I would like to see an initial bibliography of at least five entries and a description of how you will map your place. You can provide a mock-up of a map if possible, or a description of what you would like to do.

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Now showing 1 - 14 of 14

Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 14 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: Definitely for Writing Intensives, choose classes that you're going to be interested in, because this class didn't even feel like a Writing Intensive... It doesn't feel like you're writing a lot when you're passionate about it and you're interested and when you love what you're writing. Writing Intensives can be grueling when you don't like what you're writing about and you're just doing it for a credit. I think the instructor, too, has to do with your wanting to do good in class, so that too is a factor when you're taking Writing Intensives.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 13 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: Hiʻiaka is Pele's... favorite sister, but they fought like... family... They fought like crazy, but Pele referred to Hiʻiakaikapoliopele as her favorite sister. [Her name] actually meaning Hiʻiaka in the bosom of Pele, so it was like the sister, her youngest sister, that was closest to Pele. Pele is renowned. She's the goddess of Kīlauea on Hawaiʻi Island. They came from Tahiti or Kahiki, traveled here [to Hawaiʻi]. So Pele sets Hiʻiaka out on a journey to fetch [Pele's] husband, Lohiʻau on Kauaʻi. So this is the epic tale of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele where she journeys to Kauaʻi and back that I researched and used for my project... In 2010, I think, that's when the first windmill, the wind farm, was constructed in Kahuku, and that kind of sparked my interest when our electricity bills weren't going down and when farmers were evicted from the land... I heard about the wind farms on Lānaʻi, which all of the electricity is transported to Oʻahu, to Waikīkī, so I just thought that was total exploitation of land. So when these windmills were constructed, it just raised red flags, and I was like where's this power going? We're still paying a lot for electricity. It's farmland, so it's arable land that are being used for these industrial machines, so it just sparked interest in me, and that's when I started the Kahuku project of the windmills. And then it's just so relevant too, when I took this class, because they're in talks right now. Developers are trying to develop more wind farms.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 12 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: [Referring to a page of the text for Asian Settler Colonialism featuring photos of two people, GB points to the one on the left] This is Stan Tomita, my photography professor. So another way in which everything ties together, I mean it's so cool... Candace's work on Asian settler colonialism... This was an art project they did pertaining to that. Also, Kapulani Landgraf, a Native Hawaiian photographer that I really look up to and love her work... Her work is in this book as well, her ʻaipōhaku series. She photographs different heiau and different sacred places of significance that have either been destroyed or been developed over... So super cool stuff. All stuff that interconnects to everything.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 11 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: Yes, [the course] definitely will [stay with me]. The whole experience of this semester and the process that I went through definitely will remain with me. Everything that I learned I think is very valuable.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 10 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: [I plan on] remaining here [and going back to Kahuku]... That's the reason I didn't go away for college. I just love Hawaiʻi.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 9 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: I want to become a teacher, so secondary education... photography and then art, and then also I would love to teach Hawaiian history or something that pertains to Hawaiian. I feel like the younger generation needs to learn these things. I think definitely making my map, [photography] had an influence... I did it in photoshop. It was like a collage of photographs of Kahuku... I also talked about the militarization of Kahuku, because they train up there in the mountains of Kahuku... I wanted to incorporate Hawaiian values... so I took the ahupuaʻa system. I started from the ocean, photographs of Kahuku beach, and then I went on to the land and the mountains and then where Nā Wai o Lewa is, and then the sky. Ahupuaʻa is the traditional system that Hawaiians used for subsistence... They had ahupuaʻa boundaries from the ocean to the mountain, so everybody that lived in one ahupuaʻa had everything that they needed from fish in the ocean to loʻi kalo to harvesting things in the mountains. It was kind of like an economy of subsistence. Writing is necessary for everything. Like in art, we write artist statements, project proposals.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 8 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: My relationship to Hawaiʻi and my connection to Kahuku has grown stronger, and also to all the places we studied too. I just feel a solidarity with the people in their struggle for the land there. You get to know your classmates really well because you get to hear their story and their connection to the land they're from. The mural was in protest to the telescopes on Mauna a Wākea, which is a sacred place, and then the controversy of how it was censored and we talked about the mural as being an example of a map. A Hawaiian-knowledge-based map. It's not your typical map when you think of a map in your head, but it is mapping the sacredness and the moʻolelo... and how Mauna a Wākea is significant to Hawaiians... I think my major being art and then the correlation with this class and what I learned in this class has clarified my focus in what I want to do artistically with moʻolelo and history and land and how it all kind of is connected. The way I see land has completely changed. We talk about how land formations and the mountains... there's a moʻolelo to everything... When I look at the mountains... ʻike Kualoa, I can see the back of the moʻo. Mokoliʻi, I can see that as the moʻo's tail... I don't think I had seen that prior to this class and the depth of research that we've done, but completely when I take my camera out and I'm looking at land, I just see it in a whole other way. I try and think of what could the history be or what could the moʻolelo be? What does this look like to me?
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 7 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: I learned a lot about different moʻolelo. One of the books that was required is 'Sites of Oahu,' and there's just so much moʻolelo in that book that we researched for little assignments and stuff. I got a better grasp and a better wealth of knowledge, I guess, from the different assignments and also the readings. We talked a lot about different land struggles... and moʻolelo that pertain to those sacred places.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 6 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: I think this course has made me a stronger writer... In particular, using writing as defending, for instance, this significant place... Using writing to combat and to defend the importance and the significance of this place... in a historical sense all the way to present day... incorporating the different dynamics of all the different types of readings into my paper and also just the whole process of this project... In the end we could put it all together. Although it seems easy to just like take all the papers and put it in one, [but] to make it cohesive and everything you need to do a lot of editing, you need to re-read, peer edit. It was a process. We got into groups of three and we peer-edited... [Candace] had a rubric of what she wanted us to critique and what she wanted us to focus on and make sure our papers had. In the peer editing process we also talked about what they wanna see in my map and what we could do for that as well.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 5 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: I think what was most successful was how the moʻolelo that I found tied in to this current controversy that's going on, and then the bigger picture of using moʻolelo to combat development projects that threaten significant places. I attended all our community meetings, so it all kind of tied in very nicely, and I think that was what made my paper successful. I think success for Candance for us would be just to grow our sense of kuleana for this land and to grow aloha ʻāina and also to grow our interest and our passion in these processes like map-making and how powerful it can be to help protect these places of significance and these sacred places... I think [she would be looking for those things most in our writing].
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 4 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: [Professor Fujikane's assignments] motivated me. Everybody had their connection to a certain place, and I think in that sense there was that motivation to dig deep and to research moʻolelo of that place and different development projects that threatened these places. It's important that these assignments mean something to you and that really motivates our performance in the class.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 3 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: My topic, or my area of interest, came easily because I've been working on Kahuku for maybe a year with my personal art-making. Some of the difficulties [were in] bringing in the dynamic of mapping, just different cartographies and the history of maps and tying that in. Researching was kind of difficult too. Some of my research involved newspapers in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, so I had to try and translate it, and my little sister went to Hawaiian immersion, so I was like 'HELP ME!' I've taken three years [of Hawaiian]... It's enough to get the gist of what was being said in the newspapers, so I tried my best. Huku means projection or to jut out. It's known as the land that was once afloat that was wafted by the winds, so there's moʻolelo that suggests that it wasn't connected to Oʻahu. In Hiʻiaka, when she's traveling to find Lohiau... when she travels into Kahuku she is met with Lewa. Lewa is the supernatural woman of Kahuku... Kahuku Lewa is also identified as the wind of Kahuku, and Lewa means to float, and it has to do too with how Kahuku was floating over the ocean and the winds that made it shift back and forth. So anyway, Hiʻiaka says that Lewa will forever be remembered as the woman of Kahuku, and so the Wai o Lewa, which are the breasts of Lewa, which are hills in Kahuku... I think I found them, but I'm not too sure... By reading newspapers and other accounts of the moʻolelo, I tried to pinpoint where exactly they were. So I went driving and kind of across Turtle Bay Resort, there's hills and they do look like breasts of Lewa... Kalaheo Kahipa is a ridge in Kahuku and it's said that between Kalaheo Kahipa and Nā Wai o Lewa, that is the place where Kahuku is hooked to Oʻahu. So there's supposed to be a hidden secret cave, which I think I found too. It was really cool just doing all the research and then coming across that newspaper. The newspaper in Hawaiian, it pointed out where it is... It was like a hunt. It was a treasure hunt... I think we found it, but I'm not too sure. I've been meaning to ask some kūpuna in Kahuku just to make sure.
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 2 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: [The class had] a lot of group exercises and a lot of discussions. It was a small class, so it was nice... just kind of like a little community. The different manaʻo and different experiences that each person brought to the table made it interesting. [The readings] are all very interesting, but it's cool how they all tie together in mapping. We talked about what can be a map and pretty much you can map anything. Hula is mapping a history. You can map through art, you can map through photography. The mural Ka Leo did about Mauna a Wākea... even through storytelling and writing you can map things out
Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Upper Divison English, clip 1 of 14
(2015) Place-based WAC/WID Hui; Borges, Ghialana; Henry, Jim
Brief excerpt from interview: I know that [Candace] loves maps, and being an art major it just kind of clicked. It connected because the art that I do is really tied to land. I focus a lot on land struggle and land, and so I thought mapping is super cool. This class would give the freedom for us to choose a place that we are connected to and for the whole semester focus on that. Even though I'm an art major and I'm not an English major... [Candace] said it's fine... It's not required, I have all my Writing Intensive credits and everything... I just wanted to take this class for me. [Candace] is so passionate and she just loves what she does, and I love her area of focus on Native Hawaiian issues and land struggle, because it's everything that I'm interested in as well. My mom remarried when I was around five or six and my stepdad is Native Hawaiian, so I was kind of brought up with a Hawaiian knowledge base. Just Hawaiian values instilled in me, and so I always had kind of a passion and a connection to further studying the language, different issues in Hawaiian history, so that history and my upbringing has kind of been that influence on me. I'm from Hauʻula, like ten minutes from Kahuku.

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